What It’s Like to Work at an Abortion Call Center
Amid growing abortion restrictions, the relationship between phone advocates and clients is a mix of customer service and counseling
On a nondescript street in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, sits a squat one-story building, the kind found in suburban office parks around the country. Past its doors is a maze of rooms with walls painted in welcoming shades of pink, purple, and yellow. In the heart of the operation, a group of workers sit in their cubicles, taking phone calls from clients around the country — and, on occasion, around the globe.
The staff are not offering tech support or assisting someone in tracking down a lost package. They’re helping the many clients of the Women’s Centers — a network of five abortion clinics located in New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. This particular Cherry Hill office is known as the Advocacy Center, where people around the U.S. call to schedule their abortions and ask questions about the procedure. These conversations can get complicated quickly. Over the course of a call, phone advocates (as they call themselves) help clients address potential barriers to getting the procedure, which can include figuring out when and where the abortion will take place, how it will be paid for, and how the client…
